In the last decades, ecumenism and the
ecumenical movement have become commonplace for most Christians. In a situation
where the term globalization characterises our condition in all its ambiguity,
to the majority of people ecumenism seems self-evident. Nonetheless, after the
first rather euphoric phase of the ecumenical movement which followed the Second
Vatican Council, the last decade has seen us experiencing signs of tiredness,
disillusionment and stagnation. Some speak even of a crisis, and many Christians no longer understand the differences on which the Churches are arguing
with each other. Others hold that ecumenism is outmoded and that interreligious
dialogue now represents the new agenda. In my opinion, there is a difference but
not a competition between the two dialogues, for ultimately to be effective
interreligious dialogue presupposes that Christians can speak one and the same
language. Indeed, the necessity of interreligious dialogue makes ecumenical
dialogue even more urgent.

Today, through the new means of
communication and travel, people are closer to each other; nations and people
are much more interrelated and they are, so to say, on the same boat for better
or for worse. This gives an impulse to the Christian Churches, and they are
challenged to reflect upon their divisions and to seek to overcome them.
Ecumenism is thus a response to a sign of the times. For the Catholic Church,
especially for the present Pope, this is one of the priorities of her pastoral
work.[1]
It is all the more necessary since the divisions between the Churches are
becoming increasingly more shameful and scandalous, preventing them from giving
a common witness to life, justice, peace, human dignity and solidarity in a
world which urgently needs such a common testimony.

All the more do the questions arise:
Where are we? Why this crisis? How do we overcome the current problems? What are
these problems? In order to understand our situation we must for a brief moment
trace the origins of our difficulties.

I. Impulses

The 20th century, which began
with a belief in progress which is quite unthinkable today, turned out in the
end to be one of the darkest and bloodiest centuries in the history of mankind,
with two world wars, many local wars, civil wars and ethnic conflicts, two
humanity-despising totalitarian systems, concentration camps and gulags,
genocides, expulsions and waves of refugees. Never before had so many people
violently lost their lives in one single century. But in that dark century one
bright light also shone: the rise of the ecumenical movement. After the
centuries during which the “una sancta
ecclesia”, the “One Holy Church” confessed by all Western Churches in
a common profession of faith, broke increasingly into separate Churches, a
counter movement set in.

All Churches became painfully aware that
such a situation contradicted Jesus Christ’s will, and was a sin and a
scandal. The separation of the Churches – 1500 years ago with the Ancient
Oriental Churches, 1000 years ago with the Orthodox Churches, and almost 500
years ago with reformed Christianity, with a tendency to still new divisions –
has seriously prejudiced the credibility of the Christian message. The divisions
have brought much harm to mankind, inducing disunity and estrangement even
within families, even to this very day.

Characteristically, the new ecumenical
awareness developed in connection with the missionary movement. The birth of the
ecumenical movement is generally traced to the 1910 World Missionary Conference
of Edinburgh. The division of the Churches was recognized as a serious obstacle
to world mission. A second impulse came from the war experiences and the
national-socialist terror. In the concentration camps, courageous Christians
from different Churches discovered that in their resistance against a new pagan
totalitarian terror system they had much more in common than what divided them.
Thus, the ecumenical movement emerged fully in the second half of the 20th
century. The founding of the World Council of Churches in 1948 in Amsterdam was
an important milestone on the ecumenical way. With the Second Vatican Council
(1962-65) the Catholic Church, too, joined the ecumenical movement. That
decision for the ecumenical commitment – as Pope John Paul II constantly
stresses – is irrevocable.[2]

Much has been achieved over the last
decades. Separated Christians no longer consider one another as strangers,
competitors or even enemies, but as brothers and sisters. They have largely
removed the former lack of understanding, misunderstanding, prejudice, and
indifference; they pray together, they give together witness to their common
faith; in many fields they work trustfully together. They have experienced that
“what unites us is much greater than what divides us”.[3]
Such a change was hardly conceivable only half a century ago; to wish to go back
to those times would entail being forsaken not only by all good spirits but also
by the Holy Spirit.

II. The foundations

Some new documents, first of all the
Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, “Dominus
Jesus”[4],
have given rise to doubts about the ecumenical commitment of the Catholic
Church. Many people were disappointed, wounded and hurt by the tone and style of
the document. Yet, the resulting irritations are no reason for resignation.
References to still existing and undeniable differences do not mean the end of
dialogue, although they do represent a challenge to dialogue. In any case, that
document does not represent any fundamental change in the attitude of the
Catholic Church.

Because of the many misunderstandings
this text aroused, I would like before entering into the present and the future
of ecumenism to make a few – necessarily fragmentary – observations on the
theological foundations of ecumenism, as outlined in the Decree on Ecumenism of
the Second Vatican Council “Unitatis
redintegratio” and in the ecumenical encyclical “Ut unum sint” (1995). From the Catholic perspective, these two
documents represent the Magna Carta
of the ecumenical commitment.

The decisive element of the Second
Vatican Council’s ecumenical approach is the fact that the Council no longer
identifies the Church of Jesus Christ simply with the Roman Catholic Church, as
had Pope Pius XII as lately as in the Encyclical “Mystici
corporis” (1943). The Council replaced “est”
(the Catholic Church “is” Jesus Christ’s Church) with “subsisti”: the Church of Jesus Christ subsists in the Catholic
Church, which means that the Church of Jesus Christ is made concretely real in
the Catholic Church; in her she is historically and concretely present and can
be met.[5]
This does not exclude that also outside the visible structure of the Catholic
Church there are not only individual Christians but also elements of the Church,
and with them an “ecclesial reality”. “It is not that beyond the
boundaries of the Catholic community there is an ecclesial vacuum”.[6]

The Council speaks of “elementa ecclesiae” outside the Catholic Church, which, as
gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling towards Catholic
unity.[7]
The concept “elementa” or “vestigia”
comes from Calvin.[8]
Obviously, the Council – unlike Calvin – understands the elementa not as sad remains but as dynamic reality, and it says
expressly that the Spirit of God uses these elementa
as means of salvation for non-Catholic Christians.[9]
Consequently, there is no idea of an arrogant claim to a monopoly on salvation.
On the contrary, both the Council and the ecumenical Encyclical acknowledge
explicitly that the Holy Spirit is at work in the other Churches in which they
even discover examples of holiness
up to martyrdom.[10]

Similar declarations are made by the
non-Catholic Churches. The Orthodox Churches claim even more “harshly” to be
the Church of Jesus Christ.[11]
The confessional texts of the Reformation also affirm that the true Church is
present in them; they deliberately and critically made a point of striking
themselves off from the then “Pope’s Church”, and the Reformed Churches
continue to do so still today. No Church can speak of several duplicates or
branches of the one Church of Jesus Christ all having equal rights, without
renouncing the claim of being truthful. Every Church that takes itself
seriously, must start from the fact that – for all human weaknesses – the
true Church of Jesus Christ is present in it. The Catholic Church takes the
other Churches seriously precisely in that she does not even out the differences
nor does she consider these differences as being of “equal value”, but she
respects the other Churches in the otherness which they claim for themselves. In
that sense she speaks with them “par cum
pari”, on a parity level, “on an equal footing”.[12]

Besides, the Council is aware of the
sinfulness of the members of its own Church, and of sinful structures existing
in the Church itself;[13]
and it knows about the need of reforming the shape of the Church. The
Constitution on the Church and the Decree on Ecumenism state expressly that the
Church is a pilgrim Church, an ecclesia
“semper purificanda”, which must constantly take the way of penance and
renewal.[14] Thus, the ecumenical
dialogue fulfils the task of an examination of conscience.[15]
Ecumenism is not possible without conversion and renewal.[16]

The Catholic Church too is wounded by
the divisions of Christianity. Her wounds include the impossibility of
concretely realizing fully her own Catholicity in the situation of division.[17]
Several aspects of being Church are better realized in the other Churches.
Therefore, ecumenism is no one-way street, but a reciprocal learning process, or
– as stated in the ecumenical Encyclical “Ut unum sint” – an exchange of gifts.[18]

All this shows that the divisions did
not reach down to the roots, nor do they reach up to heaven. The Council
distinguishes full communion from imperfect communion.[19]
The aim of ecumenical work is the full communion and the fullness of unity,
which cannot be a unitary Church, but a unity in diversity.[20]
The way to it is therefore not the return of the others into the fold of the
Catholic Church, nor the conversion of individuals to the Catholic Church (even
if this must obviously be mutually acknowledged when it is based on reasons of
conscience).[21]

In the ecumenical movement the question
is the conversion of all to Jesus Christ. As we move nearer to Jesus Christ, in
him we move nearer to one another. Therefore, it is not a question of Church
political debates and compromises, not of some kind of union, but of a
reciprocal spiritual exchange and a mutual enrichment. The oikoumene is a spiritual process, in which the question is not about
a way backwards but about a way forwards.[22]
Such unity is ultimately a gift of God’s Spirit and of his guidance.
Therefore, the oikoumene is neither a mere academic nor only a diplomatic matter; its soul is spiritual ecumenism.[23]

III. Ecumenism with the Ancient Oriental
and Orthodox Churches

In what follows I shall proceed from the
fundamental declarations to the concrete ecumenical situation. In doing so I
shall not limit myself to Protestant-Catholic relations. In the oikoumene
we must overcome a unilateral “Western-oriented” ecumenical theology and
include the Oriental Churches, especially because the diaspora of these Churches
has meant that they have their home also in the Western world.

The Oriental Churches include not only
the Orthodox Churches, but also the Ancient Oriental Churches which separated
from the then imperial Church as early as the 4th and 5th
centuries, or had never even belonged to it (Eastern and Western Syrian, Coptic,
Ethiopian, Armenian and Thomas Christians). To us Westerners they make an
archaic impression; but they are lively Churches, deeply rooted in the life of
their respective peoples. By joining the ecumenical movement they were able to
overcome their secular isolation and resume their place within the whole of
Christianity.

The reasons underlying their separation,
besides political motives, lay in the dispute about the Christological formula
of the Council of Chalcedon (451): Jesus Christ true God and true man in one
person, that is one person in two natures. In the meantime, after intensive
preparatory work involving historical research on dogmas[24]
and discussion mediated by the “Pro Oriente” Foundation in Vienna,[25]
these controversies have been settled through the bilateral declarations of the
Pope and the respective Patriarchs.[26]
It was recognized that when speaking of one person and two natures, the starting
point was a different philosophical conception, but with the same meaning as far
as the matter itself is concerned. This understanding has enabled maintaining
the common faith in Jesus Christ as true God and true man, without imposing on
the other one’s own respective formula; thus, the formulations of the Council
of Chalcedon were not forced upon the Ancient Oriental Churches. The ultimate
outcome has been unity in the diversity of ways of expression.

In the coming months, after an interval,
we shall undertake a second phase of dialogue, this time with all the Ancient
Oriental Churches together. We hope that concrete steps can successively be
taken and that perspectives of a hopefully possible full communion can be
developed in the future.

No such official agreement has yet been
reached with the Orthodox Churches of Byzantine and Slavic tradition. However,
at the end of the Council the excommunication of 1054, the symbolic date of the
separation between East and West, was cancelled “from the conscience of the
Church”. Of course, the year 1954 is rather a symbolic date. The actual breach
occurred only with the conquest, looting and destruction of Constantinople in
1204 in connection with the 4th crusade. But that had long
antecedents. East and West had received differently the message of the Gospel
and they had developed different traditions,[27]
moreover, different forms of cultures and mentalities developed in the Eastern
and in the Western spheres. Yet despite these differences, all were living in
the one Church. But already in the first millennium, East and West grew
increasingly apart, understanding each other less and less. This estrangement
was the actual reason of the separation.[28]

So we see even today in every meeting
with the Orthodox churches that while we are very close to one another in the
faith, we have difficulties in understanding each other culturally and mentally.
In the East, we encounter a highly developed culture, but one with neither the
Western separation between Church and State nor the modern Enlightenment in its
background, and one perhaps marked most of all by 50 or so years of Communist
oppression. After the changes closing the last century, these churches are now
free for the first time – free from the Byzantine emperors, free from the
Ottomans, free from the Tsars and free from the totalitarian Communist system;
they see themselves facing an entirely transformed world, in which they must
first find their way. This takes time and requires patience.

The three documents produced by the
“Joint Catholic-Orthodox Commission for the Theological Dialogue” between
1980 and 1990 show a deep community in the understanding of faith, church and
sacraments.[29] The positive results of
the North-American dialogues have also been a valid contribution. Along this
line, important elements of the ancient church communion with both the Orthodox
and the Ancient Oriental Sister Churches could be renewed: reciprocal visits and
regular correspondence between the Pope and the Patriarchs, frequent contacts at
the local church level and – importantly for the strongly monastic Oriental
Churches – at the level of the monasteries. Our estrangement has persisted
over so many centuries, and a long process will be needed to live together
again.

The only seriously debated theological
issue[30]
between us and the Orthodox Church, besides the "Filioque"-clause in the Creed, which is still a motive of
separation for most Orthodox, is the question of Roman primacy. As Popes Paul VI
and John Paul II have often said, this issue is for non-Catholic Christians the
most serious stumbling block.[31]
In this perspective, John Paul II in his ecumenical Encyclical “Ut
unum sint” (1995) extended an invitation to a fraternal dialogue on the
future exercise of the primacy.[32]
A quite revolutionary step for a Pope! The resonance was great; yet, unlike most
Churches of the Reformed tradition, the Oriental Churches have unfortunately
hardly taken up this invitation. The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian
Unity has collected the reactions to this initiative and has sent this data to
all the churches and ecclesial groupings involved. We hope in this way to have
initiated a second phase of the dialogue. The outcome of the first phase – as
to be expected – was by far not yet a consensus; but there seems to be a new
atmosphere, a new interest and a new openness.

Unfortunately, after the 1989/90
political changes in Middle and Eastern Europe, relations with the Orthodox
churches have become more difficult. In Ukraine and Romania the Oriental
churches in union with Rome, which had been violently oppressed and persecuted
by Stalin, have come out of the catacombs and returned to public life. Old
hostilities in turn re–emerged, and have since then made the dialogue more
difficult, especially with the major Orthodox church, the Russian-Orthodox
Church. At the last plenary meeting of the “Joint International Commission”
in Baltimore, 2001, we could unfortunately make no progress. It has become clear
that the issue regarding the Oriental Churches in union with Rome cannot be
discussed without taking up the main cause of separation and of union, namely
the question of communion with Rome.

That question cannot be considered in
isolation; it concerns the relationship between primacy and synodical structure
(we would say: collegiality).[33]
Joseph Ratzinger – at the time in his academic role –laid the basis for that
discussion in his well-known address in 1976 in Graz, by stating “that what
was possible during a whole millennium can Christianly not be impossible
today”. “On the doctrine of the primacy, Rome must not require more from the
East than what was formulated and lived out during the first millennium”.[34]
Known as the “Ratzinger Formula”, this idea has become fundamental for the
discussion; it has also been touched upon in the Encyclical “Ut
unum sint”.[35]
We hope to have soon the possibility to take up the issue during a symposium.

IV. Oikoumene with the Churches of the Reformed tradition

It is necessary to go into more depth in
relation to the ecumenical discussion with the Oriental Churches, for I am
convinced that such a discussion is essential also in order to overcome the
divisions within Western Christianity. Upon its separation from the East, Latin
Christianity has developed unilaterally; it has, so to say, breathed with one
lung only and is impoverished. This impoverishment was one cause, among others,
of the serious crisis in the Church in the late Middle Ages, which led to the
tragic division of the 16th century. My following remarks will limit
themselves to the dialogue with the Lutherans which, together with the dialogue
with the Anglican Communion, is the most developed one.

In the meantime much has been
accomplished in many bilateral and multilateral dialogues at the international,
regional and local level.[36] Based on considerable
preparatory work,[37]
the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” was solemnly signed in 1999.[38] This – as the Pope rightly expressed it – was a milestone, that is an
important step but not yet the end of the journey. The result allows us to give
common witness to the essence of the Gospel. Of course, there are a number of
further yet unresolved issues. However, the Churches do not have to agree point
by point on all theological issues. If there is substantial agreement,
differences are not necessarily church divisive. A differentiated agreement, a
reconciled diversity, or whatever we name it, is sufficient.[39]

The actual “inner core” which
remains and was hidden in a footnote of the “Joint
Declaration”,[40]is the question of the Church and its inherent question of the ministry. It
is now on the agenda. In the process of the Reformation – with or without the
intention of the Reformers – a new type of church has in fact come into being.[41]

In the reformatory sense, the Church is
“creatura verbi”;[42]
she is understood primarily through the proclamation of the Word and the answer
in the faith; she is the assembly of the believers, in which the Gospel is
preached in its purity and the sacraments are administered according to the
Gospel.[43]
Hence, the centre of gravity is no longer in the Church – a blind and vague
word, according to Luther[44]
– but in the community as the “central reference point of the basic
reformatory insights and mental structures”.[45]
For that reason the constitution of the Churches of the Reformed tradition is
not episcopal but community-synodical and presbyterial; theologically, the
episcopate is a pastorate with the function of church leadership,[46]
a comprehension which is even more strongly marked in the Reformed Churches than
in the Lutheran Churches.[47]

However, in the two last decades there
has been some shift. The Lima documents on “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry”
(1982), in which the apostolic succession in the episcopate is considered “as
a sign, though not a guarantee, of the continuity and unity of the Church”,[48]
play an important role. Meanwhile, in the dialogue with the Anglican Churches,
which hold ecumenically an important intermediary position,[49]
the Scandinavian and the US-American Lutheran Churches have taken up the issue
of the historical episcopate.[50]
The continental European Lutheran Churches of the Leuenberg Community have a
different stand; they understand the episcopal and synodical-presbyterial order
as legitimate plurality.[51]

There is still need for clarification on
ecclesiological issues, especially on the ordained ministry, both ecumenically
and within the Protestant world itself. We receive currently different signals
from our partners, and it is not easy for us at this time to distinguish in what
direction they are moving in ecclesiological terms. The Joint International
Dialogue Commission is now working on these issues. The “Faith and Order”
Commission has also initiated a consultation process on “The Nature and the
Purpose of the Church”[52]
which –we hope – will constructively build further on the Lima documents on
“Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry” (1982). Thus, in the dialogue with the
Churches of the Reformed tradition, after the clarification on the Doctrine of
Justification, the issues still pending are pre-eminently those dealing with
ecclesiology. In the Catholic as well as in the Orthodox understanding, these
issues represent the key to moving forward on the question of Eucharistic
communion.

V. The fundamental problem from a
theological point of view

The following objection is often made:
it cannot be that just because of the question of church ministry –
priesthood, episcopate, Petrine ministry – we should live in separate churches
and not participate together in the Lord’s Table. And yet it is so!
Theologians of the Orthodox Churches and of the Reformed tradition point out
that on the issue of ministry a deeper difference is becoming clear. We shall
progress in the ecumenical dialogue only if we succeed in defining more
precisely that deeper difference, not in order to cement the diversity but to be
able to overcome it in a better way.

For authoritative Orthodox theologians,
especially those of the neo-Palamitic School, the basic difference involves the
argument about the "Filioque",
the Latin addition to the common Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of the old
Church.[53]
At first sight, this seems a somewhat odd thesis, although it is at least still
comprehensible. Yet, in the view not only of many Orthodox theologians, but
recently also of Reformatory theologians, the "Filioque" has concrete consequences for the understanding
of the Church. For them, it seems to link the efficiency of the Holy Spirit
fully to the person and work of Jesus Christ, leaving no room for the freedom of
the Spirit, who blows where it chooses (Jn 3:8). According to that reading of
the "Filioque", the Holy
Spirit is so to say entirely chained up to the institutions established by
Christ. For these theologians, this perceived tendency represents the roots of
the Catholic submission of charisma to the institution, of individual freedom to
the authority of the Church, of the prophetic to the juridical, of the mysticism
to the scholasticism, of the common priesthood to the hierarchical priesthood,
and finally of the episcopal collegiality to the Roman primacy.

We find similar arguments based on other
premises on the Protestant side. The Reformatory Churches are no doubt in the
Latin tradition and they generally keep the "Filioque";
against the rebels they affirm with energy that the Spirit is Jesus Christ’s
Spirit and is tied to Word and Sacrament. But for them, too, it is a question of
the sovereignty of God’s Word in and above the Church, and with it of the
Christian human being’s free will, as against a – real or supposed –
unilateral juridical-institutional view of the Church.[54]

[11]J. Meyendorff, The Orthodox Church.
New York 1981, 225: “As opposed to Protestantism and Roman Catholicism,
the Orthodox Church claims to be the true Church of Christ from which
Western Christians have separated. Its claims are as exclusive and
categorical as those of Rome”. Cf. D. Staniloae, Orthodox
Dogmatik, vol. 2.Zurich-Gütersloh
1990, 223 s.

[19]UR 3; UUS 11.When “Dominus
Jesus”, 16, says that only in the Catholic Church is the Church of
Jesus Christ fully realized, what is meant can be only the
sacramental-institutional dimension of the Church. So understood, such a
declaration implies that in other Churches and Church communities the Church
of Christ is realized under the sacramental-institutional aspect, not fully
but imperfectly.

[34]Reprinted unchanged in: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Theologische
Prinzipienlehre. Steine zur Fundamentaltheologie, Munich 1982, 209.Later,
J. Ratzinger has not withdrawn his position, but has defined it against any
misunderstanding by clarifying that one should not deduct from it the return
to the first millennium and therefore a return oikoumene.Cf. J. Ratzinger, Kirche, Ökumene,
Politik, Einsiedeln 1987, 76 s; 81 s.

[36]We shall mention only the international documents: With the Lutherans: The
Gospel and the Church (“Malta Report”) (1972); The
Eucharist (1978); Ways to
Community (1980); All Under One
Christ (1980); The Ministry in the
Church (1981); Martin Luther –
Witness to Jesus Christ (1983); Facing
Unity (1984); Church and
Justification (1994). With the Reformed: The
Presence of Christ in Church and World (1977). Multilateral dialogues: Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry, Convergence Declarations of the Faith
and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (1982); Confessing
one Faith Together. An ecumenical Interpretation of the Apostolic Credo as
Known in the Profession of Faith of Nicea-Constantinople (381).

[40]See above 9. Note 9 calls the attention to the different use of the word
“Church” and to the unresolved ecclesiological question connected to it.

[41]I say deliberately: a new type of church and I prefer this formula of
Cardinal J. Willebrands (The Notion of
“Typos” within the one Church [1970], reprinted in : Information
Service 1999/II-III, 130-140) to that of “Dominus
Jesus” 17, which says that what is meant is not a church in the true
sense. That formulation has to be understood in the sense of the scholastic
doctrine of analogy. In that sense, it does not say that the churches issued
from the Reformation are non-churches or fictitious churches; it does not
exclude, or it rather includes
that in comparison with the Catholic understanding of the Church they are
churches in an analogous sense.